Are You Wondering How To Walk On The Beach Without Hurting Afterwards?

Hi, I'm Dr. Molly with Your Goals Physical Therapy. Are you wondering how to walk on the beach without hurting afterwards? This is a video for you. So let's talk about a few strategies that you can do right now. Let's say your trip is coming up this weekend and you just need to know what to do so that you're not laid up on the couch for two days or whatever afterwards, because your foot, your knee or your hip are just killing you.  Then after that, I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about what you could do. If you have time to prepare for going to the beach and walking on the beach is important to you, and you wanna know how to make sure that you can continue to do that activity for years to come. That will be in the second part of this video.

First part of walking on the beach, it doesn't seem like it should be this hard, but it is very hard. It takes a lot of balance. It takes a lot of ankle and foot strength, and because it takes so much foot strength. If that is a problem for you just in general, like walking around in life, then it's gonna be that much worse when the ground is not firm. Walking on the beach can be so hard for people who have plantar fasciitis or weak ankles, or a couple other things that are typically problems for your feet.

When it's hard on your feet to stay stable, it adds extra stress to your knees. For some people, they don't notice that they have anything wrong with their feet, but their knees kill them. It'll swell up. It'll be achy after you walk on the beach, it might even hurt while you're doing it and make the activity just not even fun. Who wants to walk anywhere, if it's gonna hurt your knees. That kind of plays into what happens at the hip.

Also, if your hip is weak and it's having to do so much extra work because the ground is soft and it's just not compact, it's just having to do that much more work. It starts to ache a lot more. The nice thing about sand is that it is forgiving. So typically when you're walking on the beach, your pain is not coming from the pounding like it would, if you were walking on cement. If you're walking on pavement and your knees, hips and ankles hurt, it's normally from more of that pounding forces that is happening, whereas on the beach, it's because the ground is so soft, your body doesn't have any support.
That's a little bit about why walking on the beach can be so difficult for a lot of people, but there are other things to consider.
If you're gonna walk on the beach at least in Galveston, you typically have stairs that you have to go up and go down, that are relatively steep too. They're not short steps. They're pretty big steps. Then you have where you have the loose sand. I would call it white sand, it's just relatively white, because of course it's Galveston, but that loose sand, your foot has no stability on that. You're just going all over the place, slipping and sliding. Then finally you've arrived at the where the water meets the sand.

That is the firm sand, which is where you should stay. It is the easiest to walk along that area. If you're gonna collect sea shells, you're gonna take photos, walk your dog. Then it should be right along where the water is hitting that sand so that it's nice and firm for you.

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The other suggestion is lots and lots of sandal makers and flip flop makers, now have sandals and flip flops with arch support. That is gonna be a major help. If you don't mind walking on the beach in sandals or flip flops, then invest in a nice pair of them that have arch support. Again, that can be a lifesaver for your feet, for your knees and your hips.
Other things that you can do right now, if this trip is right here and I just gotta go. Is to limit the distance, take rest breaks. You don't have to power walk, going slower can be easier on everything. Those are kind of the tips, right? So walk on the firmer sand find shoes that have arch supports that you don't mind getting wet, but that have the arch support and shorten the distance to take breaks. Those will all help make at least the recovery time after your beach trip a little bit more enjoyable, a little less strenuous. 

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Now, if you have time to prepare for this beach trip, or this is something that is part of your daily routine, and you just want it to become more comfortable. If it's part of your routine, things that you like to do, and you don't wanna give up walking on the beach and you have time to prepare. Here are some objections, start a stretching program, get a full body. But if we're only concentrating on walking on the beach, you need to get used to stretching your hips, your knees, and your feet, your ankles. It's very important to keep all of them nice and flexible.
Because again, as I was talking about it, there's all that slipping and sliding and things move a whole lot when you're walking down the beach, the water takes some of the sand away. If you have to walk on the soft sand, that's a lot of flexibility that your ankle specifically has to have. Making sure that they're nice and flexible. A strengthening program, being able to do just general good strengthening for your legs. You don't wanna leave anything out, you need to make sure that your ankles are getting stronger. Your knees are getting stronger and your hips are getting stronger, all very important.

They work a whole lot together when you're walking on the beach. What that could look like is maybe you're picking up Pilates, or if you like lifting weights, lifting weights, squats, lunges, all of these things are amazing for your whole body. They help balance out things like lunges and squats using all of your lower body together.
Very similarly to how they're used on the beach as well. Those are kind of suggestions for strengthening, but there are a variety of them. No one exercise is a hundred percent. The best thing for you to do is variety, it's always the best. The best thing, because that way your muscles don't really know what's happening.

You also wanna practice balance, standing on one foot. If that is hard for you, walking on the beach is gonna be exceptionally difficult. Not only are you standing on one foot while you're walking, because each time you take a step, you stand on one foot. That one foot is on an uneven surface. The sand is kind of moving around on you. If you can't stand on one foot and be relatively stable then it's really gonna be hard for you on sand.
Those are the basic suggestions to keep you being able to walk on the beach. Stretching, strengthening and balancing, those. If we have to pick key things, those are it and for lots of people that is very overwhelming. So if you're looking to fast pass, feeling confident in getting back to, or keeping up with walking on the beach, then contact me.

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This is what I do. I help people come up with a specialized program to get them back to the activities that they want to get back to, what their goals are and what they want to keep doing. We look at where their strengths and where their weaknesses are. We address those things specifically and only those things to get them back to what they want to be able to do. As fast as possible. 
We talk about healing, we talk about strengthening and we talk about how to maintain these things once they've left my clinic. If that is something that sounds good to you and you just wanna get on the phone and have a chat, I offer a free phone consultation. They take about 20 minutes. We'll talk about what your goals are and whether or not I might possibly be a good fit. In that phone call, we'll figure out what the next best step is for you. 
Let's say you have something that's a little bit more specific that you're trying to figure out and you wanna know if physical therapy or somebody like me could even help with that. I offer a $20 full body diagnostic. So if you're having a specific situation or a specific injury or a specific task that you're trying to get back to, and you're trying to figure out a physical therapy could even help, you could come in, we'll spend 20, 30 minutes doing a full body screen. So I'll watch you move and give you the information that I get from how I have you move and the different activities that we run through and let you know if I can help. If I can, what that would look like moving forward.  Now that I've gotten through my tongue twisters.
I hope that you're having a great day and you know, this is beach weather. If there is any, because it's like 9,000 degrees outside and being on the water is the best place to be. So please don't give up walking on the beach for something that can be fixed. I hope you have a great day. Bye.

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For more blog post like this, check out the links below!
how to stop back of knee pain while walking 
what causes knee sounds while walking
​why getting out of a walking boot is the start of recovery

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